Plant Life
by Rin Truthsayer
Summary: Okay, it's a continuation thingie. Starts roughly a year after the last ep. of Trigun, and it's going to focus on the different plant heories a bit. The first chapter doesn't have much to do with the plot right away, but it comes in later, and it gives
1. Past, Present, and Prizes

Past Present and Prizes

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            Hey peoples, this is my first go at a Trigun fic.  I watched the series, and it just left way too much open for my little obsessive compulsive self.  So I'm going to try to continue it, starting a year or so after the series ends.  There's going to be a lot of theories about plant life in this one, and I'm just gonna do the best I can in referencing to it all.  I've got several idears up my sleeve, and we'll just see how they play out, eh?  Hope ya'll like it!  

            A blonde man with blue eyes that looking to be in his twenties lay staring blankly at the ceiling.  He was in a small house about seventy iles from Kasted City; close enough to visit and get supplies once or twice a month, far enough away that the townspeople didn't feel too threatened.  

            He was dressed completely in white; white long-sleeved shirt, white pants, white shoes. A long, white overcoat that was open in the front, with a single line of six white buttons to close it, lay on the room's single chair.  It was all in sharp contrast to the dark wood of the room where he sat.  He rested in a white hammock hung to one side of the room.  As he stared, he didn't think of nothing.  As a matter of fact, he was considering something that could very well change the way he had spent the last two years.  Life had become increasingly dull for his taste some time ago, and he was more than ready to spice things up a little.  He wasn't learning anything just sitting here, day by day.  

            Two people are talking in the next room, though he isn't really listening.  He knows who they are, and at the moment he could care less about their conversation.  They did not directly affect the decision he was trying to make, and the plan developing in his mind.  And he wanted to keep it that way.  He was tired of being watched and babysat at every turn, no matter what he did.  He had put up with this far longer than was worth his time.  He was better off alone, trying to figure things out for himself.  

            He chuckled a little.  _Now all I have to figure out is just what I'd be doing anyway._  He thought for a moment.  _Anything,_ he finally decided.  _Anything other than staying here like this._  

            Hearing one of the voices in the next room rise to a surprised squawk, he rolled his eyes.  Some things wouldn't change no matter how much time passed, he knew that.  Curious as to what might have happened this time, and well understanding the entertainment value of what must be going on in the next room, he rolled out of his hammock, landing on his feet, and walked to lean against the doorjamb.  

            He shook his head slightly in amusement and slightly in annoyance as he watched his twin race around the room, his hands to his head, with an idiotic look on his face.  Tears streamed down his face and he continued to make his usual strange noises as he ran.  His bright red coat was as defined in the dark room as the first man's own sharp white.  Knives winced slightly and twisted his index finger in his ear in an attempt to rid himself of the pain from the sheer volume of Vash's shrieks, which he had yet to identify what emotion they belonged to this time.  

            Standing there with a bemused look, he watched as his brother ran around the room bawling something in French, sunk to the floor with his face in his hands yelling, "How?!", banged his head against the table, stood up and skipped around the room in joy, announcing something unintelligible over all the noise he was making, then started to panic again and accidentally slammed into a wall and sank to the floor.  Then he bounced back up and began pacing, before returning to his headlong charge around the room, yelling something in French, thus starting the whole scene over again.  

            Meryl had stood there in the middle of the room this whole time, growing stiffer and stiffer as Vash's rant of sorts went on.  It wasn't long after he began his second cycle that she slapped him hard upside the head and dropped him to the floor, a bright read mark in the shape of a hand on his face.  Knives tried not to chuckle as Meryl reached down and grabbed her husband by the wide collar of his coat, bending down on her knees so she could yell into his face.  

            _One more folly of human life,_ he thought to himself, not for the first time.  _Marriage.  Two imperfect beings joining together in order to reproduce, then choosing to stay together for the rest of their lives.  As if that would make things better._  He looked over at his brother, being yelled at full in the face, and shook his head slightly.  _You'll never catch me in a trap like that._  He examined his nails.  _I doubt those two could reproduce anyway.  They're different species.  Why should they even bother?  What's the point?  Meryl won't advance her species any more, and Vash is just tainting himself by spending years with her before her pathetic flicker of life fades into darkness and Vash and I are left as we are.  It's stupid and meaningless.  And yet nearly every human does it, and therefore my brother wants it._  He sighed disgustedly.  _He's as nonsensical as them sometimes._  

            "Would you cut it out already?!" yelled Meryl.  "You're acting ridiculous!"  

            "I was surprised!" screeched Vash in defense.  "I didn't think it could happen!"  

            "Well it did, bristle-head, so get over it!"  She dropped her hold on him and stormed out of the room.  

            "So cold…"  muttered Vash pitifully, watching after her.  Then he sighed and jumped to his feet, brushing himself off.  Then he caught sight of Knives standing in the doorway and smiled brightly.  "Did you hear the news?" he asked brightly.  

            "I'm afraid I missed that part," admitted Knives dryly.  

            Vash grinned guiltily, then all too cheerily again.  His eyes went all bright and glossy, and Knives could practically see the stars in them.  "I'm gonna be a daddy!" he exclaimed.  Then he put on his most serious face.  "Now, if you'll excuse me…"  And he solemnly marched off in the direction Meryl had gone in.  

            Knives watched him as he walked off, then shook his head and turned back into his room to gather his things.  This was just all the more reason to leave.  Some miniature Vash hybrid running loose?  He shuddered at the thought.  So he wrote a quick note giving enough explanation of why he was leaving that Vash would not come and hunt him down and drag him back here like he had a few times after that battle over a year ago, and made sure he had all of his personal belongings before walking out the door, headed for Kasted City.  

            He was out of there.  

            Well, what did you guys think?  Good?  Bad?  Somewhere in the middle?  I'm not focusing on Vash too much at first, but I'm not sticking totally to Knives either.  I plan to skip around from character to character.  Oh, and who likes Knives viewpoint on things?  Does it seem like he might think if he'd just spent a year with Vash trying to convert him and him maybe trying it out for just a little while, to see if his brother might possibly be right?  'Cause that's what I was going for.  Oh well.  Please, please review, I'd really appreciate it, I just sat and typed this up straight in about an hour, but it's way past time that I should be in bed.  School tomorrow… *sigh* just peachy…  Cait and I really need to get that chant together…  Lol, you know you're weird when you and your friend are plotting to learn how to say the genocide song Vash sings when he's trying to freak those peoples out in a chant that he can mutter and get louder with just to freak out people we don't like…  But hey, what else are we supposed to do?  Besides, the looks on people's faces are reward enough for me!  

            Lol, but seriously, tell me what you think.  


	2. Observation

Observation

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            Okay peoples, I'm so glad you guys liked this so far!  I'm going to try to take this into the next phase, though I'm not quite sure how it'll work out in the end.  I've got the basic outlines, but that's about it.  Let's see how it pans out in the end, eh?  

            There's some new characters, though they don't show up in this chapter, but I'm keeping an eye on them and I'm sure that once they show up they're not going to be Mary Sues, or Gary Stus, or whatever they're called.  They won't have any basis on my own personality.  And even if they did, in reality I'm someone's self-induced, split personality issue, so technically I don't exist… or tell the truth for that matter…  Heh heh, that's the joke, '~Rin Truthsayer~ "Who's telling the truth?"'  

            Either way, I hope you guys like this chapter too, and that you'll be kind enough to give me some feedback.  This is the first time either of my sides has given Trigun a whirl in the fan fiction world, so I'm not so clear on how I'm managing.  

            Don't forget to review!  

            A figure all in white stood on the cliffs surrounding Warrens City.  He had been traveling for a little over a week now, and had yet to actually go into an actual city since he had left.  The last two villages he had gone through had been facing a food shortage, and he had been unable to gain more supplies.  He was almost out now.  

            He held a hand up to block the sun from hitting his eyes.  It looked anything but supplied poorly.  This was a city though, after all, not some back draft town made up of all the hodgepodge people that couldn't get along with everyone else in a city.  He frowned slightly as he began his walk down to where he could get to the same level as the town.  That was another thing he needed to think about, the way they dispersed.  Sighing deeply, he went over everything he wanted to go over.  

            Though a good deal of the reason he had left was to get out of that little house and the company of Vash and Meryl, he also had a few other reasons.  He was testing Vash's little theory on humans, in his own way.  He shook his head again.  That wasn't right either.  He tried to organize his thoughts so that what he wanted to accomplish would be clearer.  He had a fairly good distance he had to cover, after all.  

            He knew he didn't really understand humans.  He had never bothered before.  What was the point, after all?  The plan was simple enough: kill them off to make a decent place for him and Vash to live in.  But Vash had been vehemently against the idea, right from the start.  Knives had always figured that with time he could bring his immature twin around.  After all, time wasn't an issue; they did not die so easily as humans.  

            But then Vash had gone off and continued to associate with humans, seemingly for no reason at all.  Fine, Knives could accept that; it was good to have some diversity, to try everything once.  Vash had always been more curious than him, and his seemingly undying obsession with humans had him hooked for a little while.  

            Knives had been more than fair; he had given his brother a hundred years in which to play before he had approached him again.  He had thought it rather fitting at the time, to renew their relationship with the spilling of the blood of Vash's last link to Rem.  Rem was the human his brother had been so attached to, after all.  If she was completely gone, in every way, Vash would turn back to him.  He had always needed someone to guide him along; why else would he have followed Knives like a lost puppy all those years after the Project Seeds ships had crashed?  

            Then Vash had surprised him again.  Despite the time Knives had given him, the point he had made, he had still remained as idiotically sensitive and emotional as the day they landed on this forsaken dust ball of a planet.  He had offered Vash his own true power, and then he had used it, to shoot, of all people, _him_!  

            After that he had thought that perhaps Vash needed a different kind of impetus.  So he had put together the Gung Ho guns.  They had all failed in the end, but he had expected as much, and he had to give Legato a hand for that stunning stunt he had pulled, forcing Vash to kill a man with his own hands!  He had merely thought the man had been bragging when he had told Knives he would make Vash suffer forever, and it had been most shocking when he was as successful as he was.  

            Vash had gotten over his little fit of self-hatred, thank God, and had come to meet Knives.  He had half expected his brother to come willing and ready to help realize Knives' dream of clearing out the trash who called themselves humans.  But just the same, he hadn't been all the surprised when Vash had come as he did, ready for a fight.  He knew from the start that it would be the most trying fight he had ever been in, for Vash was truly his only equal.  But he had had no doubts that he would win.  That is, until he lost.  

            He still wondered at that.  He knew that he had had every intent of killing Vash in that fight, to end it once and for all.  When it was clear that Vash had won, he had expected the same treatment.  But then he had woken up in that house he had left a week ago, most of his battle wounds healed, with Vash and the two insurance girls that stayed near him weaning him back to full health.  

            Not long after, Milly had left for December.  She wanted to be the one to tell the people there of Wolfwood's death.  But then she hadn't come back.  Instead, they had received a letter saying that she was now working at Wolfwood's old orphanage full-time, and that she was having a great time.  Meryl and Vash had kept in touch with her, but Knives had never bothered to learn more than the reason why she wasn't there.  What was the point, after all?  She had nothing to do with him.  

            Ever since he had woken, Vash had been trying to convince him where he had gone wrong, and so forth.  At first he had just blocked him out and dreamed of escaping that place.  But every time he tried, Vash had come after him and every time he had managed to beat him in their fights and drag him back to that house.  Then he would set Knives down, and when he awoke from his latest knockout, Vash would start the whole explanation of his beliefs over again.  It was infuriating.  Vash just _never_ let it go.  

            And so in the end, he had decided to attempt to make things more interesting by actually listening, and, to his horror, seen that perhaps Vash had a point.  It wasn't a strong one, but it _did_ exist.  If one looked at it at the right angle anyway.  Or so he thought.  He had yet to reach it.  So here he was, out on a mission of…  What should he call it?  

            _Observation._  He was out here to watch these people in their everyday lives and affairs.  It had to make a sense of sorts, didn't it?  Even spiders had a way of life that was understandable.  If he could observe them long enough, he could come to an understanding of them.  Then perhaps what Vash said would make some sense.  One needed to asses the entire situation before coming to a complete conclusion, after all.  

            He was walking into the city now, smiling distantly to himself as he walked.  He _did_ have time, after all.  Vash had gotten to play for a while; should not he also be allowed to do so?  And besides, if this whole trying to understand humans thing didn't work in the end, he still had a plan.  

            He could always just kill them all in the end.  

            Heya peoples!  What do ya think?  It's pretty much history and what I think Knives' view on the events in Trigun, but I have some of the new stuff thrown in too.  I find it kinda creepy, but I don't know…  Anybody think I was close on the right idea?  Because there was simply no way I could've made Knives some goody-two-shoes like Vash.  Nu-uh, no way!  It's just not right!  I'm trying to keep the characters somewhat true to how they were in the show, unless I've done something to make them change.  Like Knives, he's changed a bit, but not too much.  Or not…  I'm not sure how well I got into his psyche.  

            Either way, I bet your tired of my rambling.  I'd rather hear yours!  Can you guys review and tell me what ya think?  It's be a great help!  


	3. The Belief of a Drunk

The Belief of a Drunk

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            Hi peoples!  This is the next chapter of the Trigun ficcie (no duh, eh?)!  Heh, you know that town that Knives was walking into last chapter?  Well, that town's one that Vash went through a while ago…  Me and my friend always call it the drunks town…  O damn, I need to check and see what that one guy's name is before I can write this…  *sigh* Back to the episodes I go… Man, I hate it when the obsessive compulsive side of me comes out…  

            Knives walked peaceably down the street, looking this way and that.  He bothered no one, helped no one, and consequently no one gave him a second glance.  

            Pausing in an abandoned square, he looked up towards the twin suns, shading his eyes.  _I'd say another hour or so more of light,_ he estimated silently.  He looked back down the street and frowned.  Like the square he stood in, it was abandoned.  Looking all around him answered his newest question; he was out here all alone.  

            He blinked, eyeing his surroundings a little suspiciously.  He picked a direction and began walking down that street.  His footsteps made little clouds of dust rise, but there was no sound.  _Is something amiss?_ he wondered.  Cities in which there were no people to study or get supplies from didn't make for the life he was carving out for himself.  He had half a mind to find whoever was causing this disturbance and killing him for the inconvenience.  

            Turning around another corner, he caught a glimpse of a man and smiled.  Not abandoned after all.  That man turned around another bend and Knives began to follow him.  Soon enough the sounds of laugher and voices were heard, and the man he had followed turned into a bar.  After a moment's consideration, Knives followed him.  

            No one noticed him when he stepped in, but that was just fine with Knives.  Everyone seemed to be having a good time, though there didn't seem to be any serious alcohol out, yet anyways.  Knives had heard the story of this town, where his brother had become the town's infamous drunk gunsmith's best friend.  The two had proceeded to get plastered, then save the town from a Vash imposter with a ridiculous stunt of pretending their hands were guns.  

            It seemed to be a regular occurrence, how they were all situated here.  There was a feel of ritual here, of the same thing repeated again and again.  It was the end of the work week, after all; plenty of people would be out for a night on the town.  He went to an empty table in the back and sat down, resting his bag against his leg.  He leaned back and simply watched people as they talked, trying to take it all in.  

            "Drink?"  

            He looked up at the woman who had spoken to him.  She was heavyset, with brown hair and eyes, a green beanie on her head.  She wore an apron as well, and her face seemed to be formed into a permanent frown, though it seemed as though she was trying to be friendly at the moment.  

            "Water, please," he responded smoothly, smiling up at her charmingly.  If he was going to have to leave an impression at all, it was better to leave a good one.  She didn't seem to notice his charm however, and grunted vaguely before walking off again.  He frowned thoughtfully after her.  Could she not be friendly to a stranger?  

            Then he shrugged and leaned back again, lost in thought.  She brought his water and he murmured a polite hello, only to have her walk off again without response.  He shrugged her off again to watch her customers.  Someone else had just walked in and the whole bar was a clatter.  

            He was fairly heavily muscled, with brown eyes and dark brown hair.  He greeted each man and woman present amiably, asking after their families and work, speaking at least a few words with them before moving on..  Then his eyes settled on Knives and he began to make his way over.  The blonde watched him as he sat down across from the table he was at and outstretched a hand for Knives to shake.  

            "Frank Marlon," he announced easily with a smile.  

            After eying the hand for a moment, Knives took it and shook it gingerly.  

            "No name?" he asked jokingly.  "You know, I met someone once who looked a lot like you who never gave me a name."  

            _It's the gunsmith,_ realized Knives, Vash's memory of the man coming to him as though it was his own.  That was one of the advantages of staying with his equally telepathic brother, he supposed, no matter how annoying he was; Knives could recognize people he had never met, courtesy of Vash.  The only real downside was that Vash could do the same with people Knives had met.  _Though most of them are dead, so I guess it really doesn't matter too much…_  

            Deciding he might as well answer, he smiled pleasantly.  "Knives," he told Frank pleasantly.  "I've heard abut you; my brother holds you in high respect."  

            Recognition dawned in the other man's eyes and he leaned back in his chair, grinning.  "He does me too much credit then; all I did was fix up his gun a few times."  

            Knives smirked a little.  "Not as easy of a feat as it sounds," he replied evenly.  He pulled out his own colt and held it up for Frank to see before slipping it back in its holster.  "I should know, I made both his and mine."  

            Frank sat forward again, his face excited.  "Ah, that reminds me, I was curious about a certain area of i-"  

            Knives turned an old glare on him that stopped the other man in his tracks.  "Let's call it a trade secret for now," he told him quietly, a hint of cold menace in his voice.  Then he leaned back and smiled charmingly once again.  "It's really of no affair, trust me."  

            Frank nodded a little to himself.  Then he looked up and acted as though he was about to speak, when Knives' attention was snatched by a little woman who had poked him with her cane.  

            "I've seen you before," she announced.  She prodded him with her cane again.  "Tell me where."  

            Knives looked down at her confusedly.  He had no memory of Vash's to fill in the blank for this woman; apparently she hadn't stayed in his mind as someone important.  "I have no idea what you're talking about," he told her.  

            "Nonsense!" she snapped, whacking him hard in the shin.  Knives winced a little.  For all her size, she could hit pretty hard.  "I know I've seen you before and I'll have it out of you where!"  

            A little boy came up and began to tug the woman's skirt.  "Grandma, it's not him," he told her, his tone of voice pleading.  "He just looks like him is all."  

            "Geoffrey, leave me be!" she told the boy and he wilted.  She tugged her skirt away from his grubby little hands and turned back to Knives.  "Tell me where I've seen you before right now!" she demanded.  

            Knives opened his mouth to answer, only to find other people were now clustering around him, eyeing him suspiciously.  He sighed a little, upset with his inability to blend in.  He could only hope he wouldn't be thought of as his brother so much in other towns…  

            "Yeah, that's him alright…"  

            "Nah, his hair's lighter…  And he hasn't got no red coat."  

            Yeah, you're right, he's not the same, his eyes aren't the same either…"  

            "That's him I tell ya!  I've never seen someone chug so much beer so fast!"  

            "You only think that because you've been trying to beat his chugging record all night, Ralf."  

            "No, it has to be him…  I mean, look at him…"  

            "Yeah, I mean, how many people d'ya think look like that, all real tall and blonde?"  

            "But wasn't it a brighter blonde?"  

            "It is, light's just playin' tricks on you, Justin.  That's him alright."  

            Suddenly someone else that Knives once again had no clue who he was burst forward through the crowds and yelled, "What're ya'll talkin' 'bout!  Tha's Vash the Stampede!"  His eyes rolled with panic as he tried to turn back through the crowds and make his way away from Knives.  "Run fer yer lives, i's Vash de Stampede!"  He tripped on someone's foot and flew a few feet.  He landed hard on his stomach and started screaming at the top of his lungs.  "He's come to kill us all!"  

            Knives, who had closed his eyes when the man started babbling, opened them back up and looked to see the reactions of the people around him.  To his surprise they weren't panicking, but they just shrugged a little and one or two of them had gone to try to calm the panicky guy down.  "You don't understand," screamed the same man.  "I was at Augusta!  I saw 'im with me own two eyes!  Tha's him, standin' right there!"  

            _Ah, someone from Augusta,_ thought the blonde with some recognition of the event.  Vash had chased the entire town out before going to fight his minions of the time, the Gung-Ho Guns.  And right now the guy reeked of alcohol.  

            Which was probably the only reason no one else was in a total panic yet.  

            Finally, Frank said, "Vash the Stampede, eh?"  

            Knives turned to face him.  "My brother's name, not my own," he quipped sharply.  He sighed as he heard everyone else murmur.  _Why do I have to look so much like that idiot brother of mine…?_  

            "Brother, eh?"  

            "That makes sense, they must be brothers…."  

            "You mean that guy from before was the real Vash the Stampede?  And here I thought he was way too nice to have a big name like that…"  

            "But it makes sense too!  I mean, the last guy wasn't scared of the guy who tried to rob us and say he was Vash at all!  Of course he wouldn't be scared!  He knew the other guy was a fake because _he_ was the real Vash!"  

            "Heh, trash can hat and all, eh?"  

            "Man, I knew there was something strange about him, but nothing as far out as _that_…"  

            "Yeah, really!"  

            "Oh well I guess.  So how're you, Mr…"  Hey, where'd he go?!"  

            Because now that they looked around, the tall man in white had disappeared.  

***

            Knives was once again on the outskirts of town, stalking away, somewhat annoyed.  He wasn't going to get any research done with everyone fawning over him.  He'd just walk tonight and get food at the next town he came to.  Hopefully it wouldn't be as hellish as the last one was.  

            Well, I hoped you liked this.  Next chapter: Angelfire!  Haha!  I think you guys might piece together some of the implications in there, heheheheheh….


	4. Angelfire

Angelfire

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Well, hereÕs this chapter. Yay, IÕm finally getting into the main plot line! Lol, all this stuff so far has just been leading up to something else, the real plot is just starting to peak out its little nose in this chapter! So no, itÕs not just Knives wandering around. Not strictly anyway. It does focus on him traveling for a bit more, then here and there, but IÕm not just going to stick with him the whole time. I mean, I still have Vash and Meryl, Milly, some random people from the show whose names I donÕt remember at the moment, and, of course, the new people! Who are still unnamed! Heh, IÕm nutsÉ Oh well! On with the fic! 

Another town, another bar, another dark corner, another drink of plain water. 

Knives sighed at the sheer unpleasurable monotony his life had become. He was officially tempted to try some of the beer everyone was always drinking, though his feelings on VashÕs memories of the affects of alcohol rang oppositely. He had plenty of his brotherÕs memories of getting totally smashed, and having a great time doing it, but he could also sense the following hangovers all too clearly. Every time he considered he managed to convince himself the hangover and general mess wouldnÕt be worth it. 

He hadnÕt even bothered to learn the name of this town before he came, other than trying to figure out whether Vash had been there at some previous date. His brother had, but the visit had taken place about sixty or seventy years ago, so there really wasnÕt anything to worry about. If anyone from that generation was still around, they would have been too young to remember Vash, and he wasnÕt all that noticeable of a figure back then anyway. 

So here sat Knives, bored out of his mind at the sheer dullness of the average human life. He took another long gulp of water. _Another town, another bar, another dark corner, another drink of plain water._

The people werenÕt even interesting at all today. There werenÕt that many to begin with, and of the ones that were there, most of them sat slumped over, passed out from too much drink. Knives sighed and leaned back. 

_Another town, another bar, another dark corner, another drink of plain water._

He heard some commotion outside and perked up curiously. No one else even looked up. Wondering what could be going on, he stood up and walked out, to find himself in the middle of a crowd that was more of a mob than anything. From the yells and general catcalls he heard, it sounded like they were confronting a thief. 

The blonde sighed. He supposed he shouldÕve expected as much. Of all the things these villagers hated the most lately, it was thieves. With this yearÕs famine, food and supplies were running slim, and while people would be fine, they really didnÕt have anything to spare, and hadnÕt for the past several years, really. It wasnÕt too uncommon for entire villages to gang up on a found thief and injure or kill them. 

That was another strange thing about humans. When grouped together they sometimes performed truly barbaric rituals. Wondering about the condemned, he pushed through the crowds a little to see who it was they were circling. 

He was genuinely surprised to find a girl in the middle who looked to be no more than fourteen or so, with mid-length black hair and green eyes, dressed in a white long-sleeved shirt that was far too big and a simple blue skirt that came down to her knees. She was shaking a little in fear, though that was understandable, considering the circumstances. Almost as soon as he saw her though, she decided to make a break for it, brushing right next to him on the way. She got out of the circle and began running for all she was worth. Knives stood still as the crowd surged around and past him, following her. Something inside him that he didnÕt really understand ached to follow the crowd. There was something strange about the girl, he could feel it in his bonesÉ 

Shaking his head slightly, he jogged after the mob. _ItÕs a human affair,_ he told himself sternly. _I donÕt meddle in human affairs, not anymore. IÕm only here to observe._ He nodded a little to himself reassuringly and speeded up. 

When he arrived at the crowds once again, he found that the poor creature had mistakenly backed herself up against a wall. Her terror was plain on her face now, though it was mixed with a set determination. Suddenly she pulled a gun out from under the hem of her skirt, a dark gun, which looked all to familiarÉ KnivesÕ eyes widened and he hastily patted down his sides and realized that she was indeed holding _his_ gun. He blinked a few times in confusion. She had brushed past him before, but it had only been a brushÉ _By God, sheÕs not only a thief, sheÕs a _good_ one!_

Her arm trembled with the unfamiliar weight of the weapon; she was on the verge of tears. ÒDonÕtÉ DonÕt come any closer!Ó she cried. ÒIÕllÉÓ She put both hands on the gun and widened her stance. ÒIÕll shoot!Ó 

Knives was in a slight dilemma. He didnÕt want to interfere, that wasnÕt his job, but in a way he had already interfered because it was his gun she had taken, and that involved him in this whole preposterous situation. 

The crowd surged forward once again and the girl screamed. Knives looked up from his contemplation and hissed in a breath of disbelief at what he was seeing. The girl had tried to fire the gun, just like she had threatened to. But no one could have suspected what happened. 

The top of the gun had popped off and a wave of energy ran up the girlÕs arm, shredding her shirt and seeming to crystallize the arm as it went. Hand and gun transformed into something totally different, looking like a small cage containing a ball of light. 

The angry villagers had all stopped their charge and stood openly gawking at the girl, who just continued to scream. Knives was smart enough to run around to the side of her, but the others stood there in shock, completely mystified by the girlÕs transformation. A bright light erupted from the girlÕs arm and everyone shielded their eyes. Once it was over Knives opened his and looked around. 

The little village was decimated, the angry mob quieted in a mixture of death and a slumber that had to be a state near death. When he looked back at the girl he was surprised to find her still awake, breathing in great shuddering gasps. Her arm was back to normal now. She saw that he was looking at her and dropped the gun before bolting out of town, running off blindly into the desert. 

He watched after her for a moment, not quite sure what to think. She had just created an Angel arm, which meant that she couldnÕt be human. She was of his race. But how that could be, he had no idea. 

Letting out a sigh, he walked over and picked up his gun, putting it back into its holster in his pocket. Calmly he walked back over to the ruins of the bar and dug through it all until he found his bag, which had somehow managed to survive the blast. Then he simply slung it over his shoulder and began walking in the general direction of what he assumed the next town to be in. 

ÒAnother townÉÓ He sighed. ÒAnother bar, another dark corner, another drink of plain water.Ó 

Okay, thatÕs this chapter! IÕm not sure where IÕm going to go with the next one, so it might be a while, but some ideas would definitely be appreciated! Please? Pretty please? I could really use some helpÉ 

Over and out. 

~Rin Truthsayer~ ÒWhoÕs telling the truth?Ó


	5. Angels and Fallen ones

Angels and Fallen Ones

**__**

            Okay, here' the next chapter!  Sorry it took a while, gathering ideas and time…

            "Elizabeth, there's something wrong, look at these readings!"  

            The named woman leaned over the technician's shoulder and her eyes widened as she looked at the statistics.  _Oh God…  It's going to explode if we don't do something!  She bit her lip.  Something like this hadn't happened since that once with Vash, and then she had manipulated the system, planned it out so it would overload like this.  Standing up straight, she lifted her skirts and ran to the main room where the plant was located, yelling over her shoulder for the others to get out if she levels didn't go down or she wasn't back in ten minutes.  _

            _I'm going to have to go and manually shut it off, like I said I was going to that once with Vash,_ she decided, grasping her skirts into one hand and her hat with the other.  She ran faster.  _I have to, or this whole town will be gone._  However, when she reached the plant and got the door open she found the last thing she expected.  

            A baby.  

            The child screamed as he lay there on the floor, and Elizabeth looked on in confusion and awe at the sight of him.  An infant, newly born, with an umbilical cord _leading into the plant_?  "Impossible…" she breathed.  She looked down at the bawling little boy, shaking her head.  "This can't be real…"  

            And yet, there he was, laying there, screaming.  And she couldn't just leave him.  She knelt down in front of him and pulled him into her violet-clothed lap.  Almost immediately he stopped crying and looked up at her with big brown eyes, eyes full of as much wonder and awe as her own.  Tentatively, she held out a finger and he gasped it, just like any normal child his age would.  But still he looked at her as though she were just as curious to him as he was to her.  

            The umbilical cord disintegrated, making Elizabeth jump.  She could tell from the feeling in the air, from the coloration of the place, that the power overload was at an end and the plant was calming down.  

            Yet here was this tiny boy-child in her lap, staring up at her with that inquisitive look in his eyes.  

            There was nothing else to do.  She gathered the infant into her arms and stood, beginning the walk back to the control room.  

***

            _I'm beginning to think human ought to be slaughtered on sight for the crime of monotony,_ thought Knives dully.  Yawning, he continued to trudge step after step down the street.  He had just arrived, and the sun was touching the western horizon, but he did not think he would stay the night here.  That would mean another dull night in a hotel room that looked like every other, which would inevitably drive him down to the pub for want of _any_ difference, any at all, and of course, that would be the same as everywhere else too.  

            Unless he started something, that was.  But then, if Vash traced it back to him…  He winced at the thought.  His brother wouldn't kill him, true; he would do worse.  He would coop him up in that god-awful shack he called a house out in the middle of nowhere for another year or two, when he trusted him enough to let him out again.  And those years wouldn't be spent just staring at a wall and listening to Vash yammer this time; they would also involve some annoying niece or nephew.  _That was not a thought he wanted to contemplate…  _

            Then again, not staying meant camping out alone, in the middle of the desert, like last night.  And the night before that.  And not to forget the night before that.  To trade one dull scene for another, that was no choice in his mind.  If this went on much longer he might decide to kill himself and get it over with.  Better than another hopeless showdown with his brother, and that damned shack and some kid running around…  

            He was beginning to wonder if camping on the rooftop of one of these buildings might make a difference when something caught his attention.  A sudden movement, a flash of color, something all too familiar that he could not put his finger on.  Vaguely familiar, but he couldn't quite put a memory to it.  That was odd; perhaps it was someone left from his olden days.  God, how those days were starting to sound good.  _Anything to get out of this constant cycle…  _

            It was boredom more than anything that led him searching through the town for what he had sensed when he did not see it with a quick glance around him.  At this point, anything that could make his day a little different was worth it.  

            However, when he found himself at the local bar, he almost turned and walked away, difference or no.  Pubs were traps of sheer boredom, he knew, and he had no desire to enter one again unless it was absolutely necessary.  

            After a moment, he decided that it was absolutely necessary for him to enter; if something out of the ordinary did not happen soon, he was tempted just go out and kill someone because he was _that bored.  _

            Upon entering the place he headed back to the area he sat in every one of these bar, in that one dark corner they always seemed to have.  Only, there was already someone there.  

            It was she that had caught his attention before, he quickly realized.  And he knew why.  Long black hair reached her waist in thick, dirty curls, a once too big white blouse with long sleeves was now sleeveless and frayed, fitting too tightly across the chest and drawing short of her waist to show her stomach.  A once knee-length skirt was hard-pressed to cover everything it needed to.  Long ivory legs were out in the open for the world to see.  She was as tall as Millie now, probably not finished growing, and it was all in her legs.  She might have looked to be in her early teens when he had seen her roughly four months ago, and now she might look to be nearly out of them, but by those startled green eyes if nothing else, he knew this was the same girl who had made an Angel arm.  In fact, the way she looked only confirmed it; his kind matured quickly.  

            "Water!" he called to the bar as he sat.  Meeting the girl's eyes and making his own hard, he said, "Two of them."  A waitress complied as they sat there.  Only after she had left the two glasses and left did the girl speak.  

            "What do you want from me?" she demanded hoarsely.  

            "Drink some of this water," he commented pleasantly.  "It's quite good, and you look parched.  

            "I said-"  

            "Drink."  

            She glowered for a moment, then snatched the glass and downed it all in one go like Vash would have a shot of whiskey.  "What do you want?" she demanded again.  

            "Why should I want something?" he asked in turn, setting his glass back down on the table and pushing it towards her.  He could not afford to find someone of his own race only to have her die of dehydration on him, after all.  "Drink."  

            Again, she downed it quickly.  "You know what happened back at Virginia," she muttered darkly.  

            He supposed that was probably the name of the town where she had 'borrowed' his gun and accidentally made an Angel arm.  Instead of answering her aloud, he skipped onto the surface of her mind.  _Yes, but did you never think that the owner of that gun had made it for the use you put it to? _  

            She blinked, but answered him in the same way.  _I didn't know it was the gun that did it.   _

_            It requires the right type of owner to make it do what you did; the gun is only a tool, a way to funnel that power in you. _ He made an annoyed noise, both in his mind speech and physically.  _You cannot be three years old yet.  I don't know how the hell you got here, or who you are, but I'd like to know.   _

            Swallowing hard, her eyes full of wonder, she said allowed, "My name is Charlene."  

            Perhaps this evening wouldn't be so boring after all.  

***

            "Still sounds like a stupid idea to me."  

            "Oh come on, Todd!" protested his sister, turning her head so she could see him.  She grinned crazily at him, her buttery blonde hair, cut short and layered shaggily around her face, fluttering in the breeze.  Her honey-brown eyes were the same exact shade as his own, though far more mischievous than his were.  She was always up to some trouble or other.  Her schemes were wild at best, and in this case, so far as Todd was concerned, plain old stupid.  

            He shook his head resolutely.  "I'm not helping you out on this one.  And you shouldn't go through with it either."  His own hair was the same precise shade as hers, though it was cut a bit shorter and spiked up instead of having so many layers the slightest breath of a wind tossed it and set a whole new meaning to the words 'wild' and 'uncontrollable'.  

            She stuck out her tongue at him.  "You're no fun," she told him as she turned back to look down at the ground.  They were on the top of the inn, the tallest building in town, and his twin was squatting at the edge, her toes sticking out a good inch or so into thin air.  Todd, for his part, was resolutely standing back a yard or two, his arms crossed.  He did not care if Millie said he was stubborn; you needed it when someone like Joyce was your sister, in his opinion.  

            "It's a dumb idea," he proclaimed.  "You're lucky I didn't go tell Millie on you."  

            "Oh come on!  I bet we could do it if we tried!"  She stood up and walked away from the edge.  

            "People don't fly, Joyce.  I'd rather not break my neck."  

            "People aren't so good at math as us either."  

            "Mathematical genius."  

            "People get sick sometimes."  

            "Supernaturally strong immune system."  

            "People get hurt when they fall down."  

            "Tough skin."  

            "People can't make an plant go nutty if they get near it."  

            "Coincidence."  

            "Or calm down one about to explode."  

            "Really odd coincidence."  

            "People don't grow this much in a year!"  

            "True."  

            "Hah, point proven!  Let's go!"  

            "No."  

            She sighed and sat down, looking sullen.  "I thought you might say that…."  

            "Joyce!  Todd!  Lunch is ready!"  

            "Coming Aunt Millie!" called the twins.  

            "Where are you?"  

            Both leaned over the edge and grinned down at their guardian, the woman who was in control of the orphanage in the town of December.  "Up here!" shouted Joyce.  

            Millie's eyes went wide.  "You shouldn't be up there!" she exclaimed.  "You might get hurt!  Come down right now!"  

            "Sure!" squealed Joyce, and Todd sighed and put his head in a hand as she leaped off the roof in a spin and landed right in front of her.  Perfectly fine, with a good landing.  

            Millie's wide blue eyes bulged, first incredulously, but then that quickly melted into joy as she clapped her hands and cheered the girl for her accomplishment.  

            _Oh why not…_  Todd leaped down as well, but at this point, Millie was too caught up in sheer excitement that she nearly knocked him over.  After a moment or two, she yelled something about food, and more or less skipped back to the orphanage.  Joyce started after her at a walk, and Todd came along last.  He hadn't expected anything different from dear Aunt Millie.  

***

            Vash, absorbed in drawing something, he had yet to figure out precisely what, reached out without looking for the orange he had peeled before.  It wasn't there.  Figuring it had to have rolled a little, he continued to draw with one hand and search about the tabletop with the other.  When, after nearly five minutes of searching and finding nothing, he finally looked up.  The orange wasn't there.  Then again, he hadn't thought it would be, not at this point.  And it certainly wasn't floating above the table and blowing raspberries at him.  _Or would that be orangberries?  But then, oranges aren't berries, so…_  He let that thought trail off as he looked down and found the culprit.  

            Little Nicholas stood there, looking up at his with those wide dark blue eyes of his mother's, his longish blonde hair sticking every which way.  Orange juice and pulp decorated his face, hair, hands, and shirt.  Vash couldn't help it; he burst out laughing.  With a returning grin, his son lifted his arms in an invitation to be picked up, and Vash plopped him down on his lap.  

            Though six months old, Nick looked to be about two, maybe three.  A small three.  Vash wasn't exactly sure how that worked out; he knew when he was the same age, he had looked like he was around six or seven.  And Meryl, knowing things were going to be weird, had nearly gone into shock when she realized she was pregnant and then had Nick only two weeks later.  

            Vash didn't mind the weirdness of it all though.  He had never dared to dream that this might even be possible; he hadn't thought that his kind could honestly have children with humans, and there had never been any evidence of a female Plant.  Not that he really would've wanted to, if there was one; he loved Meryl, and no one else.  

            And he had never minded when things got honestly strange.  In truth, as far as he was concerned, Nick was far from the strangest he had ever seen, or even worse, imagined.  He didn't think he would ever find anything strange enough to set him off balance again.  After over one hundred and thirty years, he had seen more than he thought he honestly wanted to.  

            He would soon find out how odd the world would get.  

            Dear God, finally; another chapter.  Took me long enough…  Review!  Any ideas?  What do you people think?  Tell me!  


End file.
